World Of Warcraft Is Evolving Into A Massive, Alternate Universe

Wow I'm glad I'm playing TOR. Raids were the only thing keeping server communities together, and now those are being shattered as well with Raid LFGs, essentially.

Good job Blizzard, keep up the good work ensuring that servers have zero community.

There are plenty of different reasons why people still play WoW and really, if you don't play it anymore then you have no reason to complain.

That could make a really interesting topic. I personally prefer the convenience and level of access of WoW's current system. Without server forums and such a devotion to single-player style quests, TOR's "community" has been pretty underwhelming.

Also, I agree with Jonathan about the TOR community. For the record, I've got a 50 BH and a 25 Jedi. The devotion to Single Player style story telling is TORs greatest asset and it's greatest weakness. On the one hand, I was really devoted to my character till I finished the class story quests. Loved it. But then when I finished... I felt like I had beaten the game. The main reason I was playing was for the class story, and it was great, but it finished and that left me feeling like there was no need to continue playing on that character. My friend wanted to continue into endgame content and has been having an impossible time with it. He's getting destroyed in the level 50 PVP bracket because everyone is already geared; he can't get into the operations because no one was doing the lower level operations anymore (they were geared); he can't get into the HIGHER level operations without gear, etc. Maybe this is an issue with the balance of the game rather than the community. But nevertheless, it still expresses some problems I've seen. I really enjoyed the game, but after I finish my Jedi, I'm not sure if I'm going to continue subscribing. I can't see myself going through another Empire class again, since about 75% of the quests are the same for every class, I can't see myself trying to wade through the miasma that is the endgame content, so I'll probably just end up un-subscribing. I think it was worth every penny to purchase, and it's worth subscribing to so long as I have a class I want to max, but beyond that, I'm not so sure.

Completely disagree with you Necro. After they introduced Real ID (A good idea.) I started realizing I knew lots of people who played, but we were all on different servers. Old friends transfer to other servers while you're not playing, and vice versa. So I now have about 2 raids worth of Real ID friends spread around on various servers. The idea that I can now organize a raid with them is fantastic. This isn't going to greatly affect server communities frankly. Trade chat is still per server, guilds are still per server. Though, when I think about it... what's so sacred about a "server community" anyways? Even IF they were being shattered, why does it matter?

Meh, I haven't had any trouble with TOR's community, I've found dozens of friends on my Role play Server. There are nightly server gatherings in cantina's and other places. Role play everywhere I go, and whatnot.
When WoW didn't have the LFG, you ended up knowing most of the folks on a server, who sucked, and who didn't. Blacklisting was a possibility, saving others from having to group with the ninja looters and douche bags. Now, that isn't at all possible, and repeatedly, time and again, in LFG I've been stuck with other servers retards and refuse.
I don't want my MMOs easy to play, because right now, WoW is extremely easy to play. There is absolutely no challenge to it, nothing is hard. They scaled up power levels in Cata, and now, the game is easy mode. I love some of the changes in Cata, the decreased difficulty to make it "easier" for new players I don't like. As for my complaining, I'm still paying my monthly fee whether I play or not, so I can still complain.

Maybe I should have rolled on an RP server. ¬_¬

I actually think breaking community barriers can harm the experience as well.

From Vanilla to BC, they made the first cross server PvP jump. It changed a server community experience where I built recognition to one that was too big and disassociated to have that experience. This was alleviated somewhat by arena, but it was the beginning of the end for my days in WoW.

People stil play MMO's?

WoW has become an occasional, few times a week venture for me, kinda like checking emails or choking myself while masturbating.

Occasional, few times a week? I can't play MMORPG's mainly because I prefer single player and because the few times I have played one I didn't feel like I was accomplishing anything.

www.everythingstentative.com

My mains a BM Hunter so I usually play alone anyways, we're not loved.

It's hard to escape the stigma of huntard, even if you aren't one

I still play MMOs, and I'd probably argue that it's my favorite genre. Nothing beats social gaming, huge worlds, reward, and atmosphere being blended together!

I only play WoW when I'm in the mood to get online and be shocked at how things have changed from vanilla WoW to now. I still remember when they dropped the mount requirements to level 20 and I spent hours yelling in Goldshire about how in the old days you had to walk everywhere uphill both damn ways inadvertently pulling mobs the whole damn time...

Hey Jonathan_Leack, where's your server at? And a simple request from me, when patch 4.32 comes out, hit me up and we will raid ICC/ulduar for transmog gear like it was 1999!

I'd love to. I play on Kil'Jaeden with an 85 Paladin and a 50 Priest I'm currently leveling up.

I forget what's required to add a friend via Real ID but we'll get rockin' soon.

Man, seems like half the people I know play on Kil'Jaeden.

You need their email address. PM me yours and I'll add you, btw.

While this has nothing to do with WoW specifically, it is relevant to the topic. Several years ago a friend started playing Final Fantasy XI. He kept going on about it so much that I finally broke down and bought it. I played the game for years. I put more hours (and money) into that one game than any other game I've ever played. I was on the Alexander server (yup, that's where it came from).

The game, like most MMOs (even WoW) started to lose players eventually. After one round of server mergers left Alex intact, I counted myself lucky. I didn't play as often as I used to, but I still liked to poke my head in now and again. Then a year later SE announced the second round of mergers, and Alex was on the chopping block. All of the players from Alexander were being moved to the Shiva server. Any naming conflicts would mean the Alexander player would have to change their name.

Now, in some games that might not mean much, but one of the things that makes FFXI unique is the ability to play all of the jobs (or classes if you must) on a single character. You tend to get attached to your character a lot more when you play the same one for the entire game, and not have multiples for each class. The short of it is, I quit the game that I'd played for years that month. Not only was my home (Alexander) being taken away, but so was my name.

I spent a lot of time and effort building up Turin of Alexander, and with one decision by SE, they killed him. I could still play the game, with all of my gear, stats, abilities, and entire history intact, but it just didn't feel the same. Maybe it's different for WoW players since changing characters and even servers is a common thing, but for me personally, I couldn't play a game like an MMO like that. It's too impersonal.

The whole point of an MMO to me is the community, otherwise you might as well be playing a single player game. Seeing the same people in the cities, even if you didn't know them brings a sense of community to the game. Knowing who to watch out for and who is helpful and who likes to roleplay and who likes to grind endgame, and who likes to just level different job for the hell of it. That's the sort of thing that you just don't get with a single massive cluster with millions of people instead of just a small group of a few thousand.

It's sort of like the difference between people that love cites versus people that love small towns. I'm definitely a small town kind of guy.

Excellent posts.

Similarly, I was hooked on FFXI for a while and consider it the most engrossing MMO I ever played. I know exactly what you mean by community and to me it felt like a sense of belonging. Moreso it added a level of familiarity that made me feel more attached to the game world.

Were the merges so bad, though? Maybe you didn't give it enough of a chance. I doubt that Alexander is the only server you could ever get that feeling from. If you gave it some time I bet yoh would've ended up liking it.

With that said, I definitely have absolutely no connection to my server in WoW. The random dungeons have washed out what supported that quality. But it certainly is a lot better being able to enjoy the content without so many barriers. I dont know which I prefer.

When I first started playing Wow I ended up switching to a new (at the time) EST timezone server. I made my 2nd toon there who I made my main. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very populous server and end game content was rather exclusive. I had a hard time finding groups to do dungeons. This made the game very unpleasant. I recently started the game back up and instantly found a group, I think they do it within battlegroups right now. Sure, PUG's can be a pain sometimes, but I never would have found a group as quickly in the past. I support this feature. When my best bud starts playing again we won't have any issues running dungeons like we had before, which is why we quit. The community I care about is the ones I make with my RL friends who play these MMO's with me.